{"id":436684,"date":"2025-12-10T00:52:35","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T00:52:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/436684\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T00:52:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T00:52:35","slug":"instacart-charging-different-prices-on-same-grocery-staples-in-same-stores-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/436684\/","title":{"rendered":"Instacart charging different prices on same grocery staples in same stores: study"},"content":{"rendered":"

Popular food delivery service Instacart has been using a shady algorithm that charges different prices to different customers on the same grocery items in the same supermarkets without telling them, according to an explosive study.<\/p>\n

At a Target store in North Canton, Ohio, the wildly popular grocery app charged a customer $2.99 for Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter one day in September \u2013 while other Instacart users that day paid as much as $3.59 for the same jar picked up from the same location, according to the study.<\/p>\n

At a Safeway supermarket in Seattle, shoppers using Instacart paid five different prices for the same Oscar Mayer Deli Turkey: $3.99, $4.31, $4.59, $4.69 and $4.89 \u2014 a range that spanned a whopping 23% between the lowest and highest markup.<\/p>\n

\"PhotoillustrationNearly three-quarters of grocery items in the study published Tuesday were sold at different price points on Instacart. Merrill Sherman \/ NY Post Design<\/p>\n

The same pattern emerged at Target and Safeway stores across four cities, according to Groundwork Collaborative and Consumer Reports<\/a>, which used 437 shoppers in its survey, ordering groceries off the Instacart app for in-store pickup.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the latest example of so-called \u201cdynamic pricing\u201d \u2014 the hated practice introduced more than a decade ago by Uber and Lyft<\/a>, hiking prices for rides during rainstorms \u2014 that is nickel-and-diming consumers, even as relentless inflation has sparked an affordability crisis. <\/p>\n

Airlines are known to hike prices when more customers visit their sites at the same time \u2014 a tactic known as \u201csurveillance pricing.\u201d Even fast-food junkies<\/a> claim to have spotted fluctuating prices on burger menus that are increasingly displayed on video screens.<\/p>\n

Groundwork, a consumer advocacy group, said Instacart\u2019s pricing algorithm could lead to shoppers forking over an extra $1,200 on groceries each year \u2014 even as food inflation has outpaced price increases for other goods since the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Nearly three-quarters of grocery items surveyed were sold at different price points on Instacart, one of the largest grocery-shopping apps in the US, according to the study published Tuesday.<\/p>\n

In response to a query by The Post, Instacart said its price \u201ctests\u201d are never based on the personal or behavioral characteristics of shoppers. It said its prices were never \u201cdynamic,\u201d meaning they never change in real time, although the study found that they changed wildly depending on who was shopping.<\/p>\n

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The study found no evidence that Instacart was using personal information, but said it\u2019s almost certain that Instacart and other retailers have the ability to base prices on demographics like age and household income, as well as whether they\u2019re new or returning customers.<\/p>\n

Instacart claimed its \u201ctests\u201d help retailers \u201clearn what matters most to consumers.\u201d While the algorithm might charge higher prices on craft beverages or specialty snacks, it often lowers prices on essentials like milk and bread, Instacart claimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust as retailers have long tested prices in their physical stores to better understand consumer preferences, a subset of only 10 retail partners \u2013 ones that already apply markups \u2013 do the same online via Instacart,\u201d an Instacart spokesperson told The Post in a statement.<\/p>\n

A Target spokeswoman, however, told The Post in a written statement that \u201cTarget is not affiliated with Instacart and is not responsible for prices on the Instacart platform.\u201d The Target spokesperson declined to comment on whether the retailer was reviewing Instacart\u2019s practices at its stores.<\/p>\n

Albertsons, which owns Safeway, did not immediately respond to The Post\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

With grocery prices up 25% since the pandemic, President Trump over the weekend ordered a sweeping investigation into food price-fixing allegations. Several Dem lawmakers have accused food conglomerates of price gouging.<\/p>\n

\"ContainersThe price changes are powered by Eversight, a software firm that Instacart acquired in 2022. EPA<\/p>\n

Instacart powers e-commerce for Stew Leonard\u2019s, which operates more than a half dozen supermarkets across the New York metro area. But Instacart has never approached Stew Leonard\u2019s to do variable pricing within the same store \u2014 and the grocer says it never would.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would never price customer A differently from customer B,\u201d the grocer\u2019s chief marketing officer, Tammy Berentson told The Post. \u201cWe would have nothing to gain. It\u2019s unfair. We are transparent about our pricing and we want to be fair to our customers and for our customers to trust us.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a Safeway in Washington, DC, a couple of shoppers paid as little as $3.99 for a dozen Lucerne eggs, while others coughed up $4.79 for the same carton. At that same store, some shoppers paid $2.99 for a box of Signature SELECT Corn Flakes, while others were charged as much as $3.69.<\/p>\n

A box of Premium Original Saltine Crackers at a Target in North Canton, Ohio, cost $3.99 for some Instacart customers, and $4.59 and $4.69 for some others. Some shoppers paid $1.19 for store-brand farfalle pasta at the same Target, while others were charged $1.43.<\/p>\n

Instacart charged shoppers at least four different prices on Wheat Thins at a Safeway in Seattle, at $3.99, $4.31, $4.69 and $4.89.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstacart is a black hole for the retailer,\u201d an industry executive told The Post. \u201cThe classic rub in the scenario is \u2018Whose customer is it\u2019 \u2013 Instacart\u2019s or the grocer\u2019s?’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is the retailers got into Instacart because it gives them an online presence, but then the pandemic occurred and they realized that they don\u2019t have any visibility into the customer transactions,\u201d the executive added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The price changes are powered by Eversight, a software firm that Instacart acquired in 2022.<\/p>\n

In a call with investors last year, Instacart CEO Fidji Simo said the new AI technology \u201chelps retailers dynamically optimize their pricing both online and in-store to really figure out which categories of products a customer is more price sensitive on versus less price sensitive on and really adjust their prices based on that information.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Popular food delivery service Instacart has been using a shady algorithm that charges different prices to different customers…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":436685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,46007,266,54522,6769,202055,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-436684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-food-delivery","10":"tag-inflation","11":"tag-instacart","12":"tag-prices","13":"tag-surge-pricing","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115692545251232922","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}